Personal Statement

My favorite part of being a doctor is the opportunity to directly improve the health and wellbeing of my patients and to develop professional and personal relationships with them....more

My favorite part of being a doctor is the opportunity to directly improve the health and wellbeing of my patients and to develop professional and personal relationships with them.

More about Dr. R. R. Mantri

Dr. R. R. Mantri is an experienced Cardiologist in Ganga Ram Hospital, Delhi. He has helped numerous patients in his 35 years of experience as a Cardiologist. He has done DNB (Cardiology), DM - Cardiology, MD - General Medicine, MBBS . You can meet Dr. R. R. Mantri personally at Sir Ganga Ram Hospital in Ganga Ram Hospital, Delhi. Don’t wait in a queue, book an instant appointment online with Dr. R. R. Mantri on Lybrate.com.

Lybrate.com has a nexus of the most experienced Cardiologists in India. You will find Cardiologists with more than 43 years of experience on Lybrate.com. Find the best Cardiologists online in Delhi. View the profile of medical specialists and their reviews from other patients to make an informed decision.

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Most people associate fibre to be good for the digestive system. It helps to add roughage and therefore helps in avoiding constipation. When we dig deeper, the fibre seems to do good not just to the stomach but to the heart as well. Those who are prone to develop heart disease should make an attempt to include more fibre in their diet and reap the rich benefits it offers.

There are two classifications of fibres

Dietary

Functional

Dietary are found in diet products and functional being added fibre through various food supplements. Soluble and insoluble fibre, based on their solubility in water. Most foods contain some amounts of both. The insoluble one has more digestive benefits, as it adds to the roughage. Both types have cardiac benefits.

Read on to know some of the cardiac benefits of fibres.

Reduces cholesterol: There is good cholesterol which is essential for the body, and there is bad cholesterol causes heart disease. What fibres do is reduce the amount of bad and overall cholesterol in circulation. The fibre binds to the cholesterol and removes it from the body, which otherwise would get into circulation and lead to plaque formation and heart disease.

Reduces blood pressure: Because the cholesterol does not circulate in the blood stream, the blood is not as viscous and therefore the vessels exert much less pressure to allow for free flow. A diet change to whole grains can show a marked difference in people with hypertension.

Weight management: Eating fibre means more bulk and fewer calories so that a person feels full after eating smaller amounts. This is a great way to lose weight and bring preexisting heart disease under control.

Stroke prevention: The circulating cholesterol usually gets sluggish and settles down along the walls of the blood vessels. This attracts more cholesterol, which eventually forms what is knowns as plaque. When this plaque attains a considerable size, it gets dislodged, circulates in the blood stream, and can reach any of the vital organs. When it reaches the heart or brain, it can lead to heart attack or stroke. By removing the cholesterol which leads to all these complications, fibre reduces the incidence of stroke and heart attacks.

Management of diabetes: Blood pressure, increased weight, and heart disease all are predisposing factors and have common contributing factors as does diabetes. Controlling all these helps in prolonging the onset of diabetes and reducing its severity too.

High-fiber diet mainly reduces cholesterol which helps in multiple ways to maintain not just a healthy body but also improves the overall quality of life.

The heart is a muscular organ that pumps blood to the entire body through a network of arteries and veins. This network contains big vessels which branch out further to supply blood to the distant organs. There is, therefore, some pressure that the heart and thereby the vessels need to exert to push the blood through these vessels. This is known as blood pressure, and normal pressure levels range from 90-140(systolic)/60-90(diastolic) mm of Hg. However, due to various reasons, this pressure could be more, which is one of the first signs of heart disease.

Causes of increased blood pressure:

Thickening of the blood vessels. With age, the elastic blood vessels naturally turn rigid and less elastic, so there is more pressure required to push blood. It is natural for people over 55 years of age to have higher readings of blood pressure. This is known as primary hypertension (HTN)

Narrowed blood vessels. This happens due to cholesterol accumulation along the walls of the blood vessels. Faulty dietary habits along with sedentary lifestyle have increased the incidence of hypertension due to this condition, known as atherosclerosis. Critical atherosclerotic narrowing of renal arteries lead to renovascular HTN that is one of the commonest of secondary HTN.

Unidentified and uncontrolled hypertension can be silent and can lead to more severe conditions like heart attack and stroke. India is fast becoming the new hypertension capital of the world. Some of the common risk factors are:

If there are co-morbid risk factors, it is advisable to constantly keep a check on BP readings.

Management:

This includes a combination of diet and lifestyle modifications.

Quit smoking and alcohol: Of the many wonders quitting smoking can do, reducing BP readings is just one. The improvement would be almost instantaneous. Quit or else reduce alcohol and see dramatic improvements.

Weight management: Through a combination of diet and exercise, ensure that weight is brought under control. Set a target BMI (Below 26 kg/m2) and work towards it religiously.

A heart attack does not always have obvious symptoms, such as pain in your chest, shortness of breath and cold sweats. In fact, a heart attack can actually happen without a person knowing it. This condition is known as a ‘silent heart attack’, medically known as ‘silent ischemia’, occurring due to the shortage of oxygen supply to the heart muscle. The causes of a silent heart attack are similar to that of a heart attack.

A silent cardiac arrest makes one more vulnerable to another heart attack that could be fatal. Diagnosis: The only method to diagnose if you had a silent heart attack is through imaging tests, such as echocardiogram, electrocardiogram, Holter Monitoring or others. These tests can show certain changes which might be indicative of a heart attack. An analysis of one’s overall health and the symptoms can aid in deciding whether few more tests are required.

How would you prevent a silent heart attack?
1. Get your cholesterol and blood pressure count tested regularly.
2. Refrain from smoking.
3. Get your VO2 max checked regularly.
4. Live a healthy lifestyle: Refrain from smoking and excessive alcohol consumption; exercise daily, eat healthy.
5. Control high blood pressure, cholesterol, and diabetes
6. Be aware of your body and call on a doctor if you feel there’s anything which is bothering you.

If you wish to discuss about any specific problem, you can consult a doctor and ask a free question. In case you have a concern or query you can always consult an expert & get answers to your questions!

The term 'chest pain’ is a very common term and is usually used in day to day life. Basically, chest pain refers to the pain that may generate in your chest, shoulder and can travel to your ribs, jaws and towards your arms. The feeling of the pain can be sharp or dull, depending on the severity of your condition and cause.

There can be several reasons behind chest pain. You need to conduct a few tests to examine the real cause of the chest pain. It is always advised by health experts to take the symptoms of chest pain very seriously in order to avoid any serious problem in the future. Most of the severe and life-threatening diseases behind chest pain involve lung and heart problems. People having serious heart problems often feel discomfort, followed by pain in their chest area.

Angina: Angina is a medical condition described as a feeling of discomfort or pain in the chest region. This situation occurs when your heart muscles don't receive blood, which contains rich oxygen. Angina is a symptom of Coronary Heart Disease (CHD). The pain can take place in your shoulder, jaw, neck and arms also.

Lung problems: People with lung disorders can encounter various types of chest pains. But some common causes are:

Pleurisy: It is a type of medical condition, which occurs due to inflammation of the lining of chest and lungs. Due to this, you feel a sharp pain at the time of breathing, coughing or sneezing.

Pneumothorax: It is a type of lung disorder, which occurs when a portion of your chest gets collapsed.

Asthma: It is a type of condition, which occurs due to shortness of breath and causes chest pain while coughing, sneezing and breathing.

Gastrointestinal problem:Gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD) is also a common reason for chest pain such as burning sensation in your heart.

Other causes of chest pain: There are several other reasons of chest pain such as muscle strain, ribs injury, shingles, anxiety and panic attacks. It is always important to visit a physician whenever you encounter any of such chest pain symptoms.

In case you have a concern or query you can always consult an expert & get answers to your questions!

The treatment of heart disease has come a long way and one of the more important and fairly common devices used to correct rhythmic problems of the heart is a pacemaker. A pacemaker is a device which is put inside the chest or sometimes even the abdomen to send electrical pulses to the heart to keep it beating at a normal rate.

However, the implications in case of heart failure make the usage of the pacemaker much more complicated. In such cases, the device used is a special type of pacemaker which is also called a bi-ventricular pacemaker. This device sends electrical signals to pump the ventricles of the heart so that they can pump at the same time.

There are many factors to be aware of before undergoing this treatment. Some of the factors to consider are mentioned below.

Requirement for a pacemaker in case of heart failure - When a patient has heart failure, their ventricles or lower chambers of the heart aren't able to pump enough blood into it. This could be due to physical problems with the heart or problems with the electrical system within it which cannot function normally. The doctor will perform multiple tests to determine whether a patient is the right candidate for a pacemaker for heart failure.

The procedure - In most cases the device is fitted into the chest and it is done without an open heart surgery. Precautions and post operative care for a minor surgery should be followed. The doctor makes a minor incision on the chest and then inserts the device along with three leads which are connected to the ventricles to ensure they keep pumping properly. Sometimes another device known as the ICD or the implantable cardioverter-defibrillator may be put in to shock the heart back to a normal rhythm in extreme cases where the change of sudden death from high heart rate is a possibility.

Immediate post operative care - As mentioned above, the surgery involved in putting a pacemaker is a minor one and the patient is usually discharged in next 2-3 days or may be more depending on the comorbidities & complexity of the scenario. However, in most cases, people can go home the next day fairly easily although some monitoring is done for the next few days with daily reporting.

In case you have a concern or query you can always consult an expert & get answers to your questions!

Heart disease doesn't affect all women in the same way and neither does it have the same warning signs as heart diseases in men. For women, heart disease is a bigger threat than breast cancer. Cardiovascular diseases also kill more women than men as the disease progresses differently in men and women. Here are a few things you should know about heart diseases.

Women have more atypical symptoms of heart attacks: The classic symptoms of heart attacks are pain in the left arm, chest pain and heart palpitations. Though women may exhibit these symptoms, they are more likely to have atypical symptoms. These include nausea, stomach aches, pain in the shoulders and upper back and extreme fatigue.

Preeclampsia and gestational diabetes can increase risks of heart disease: Even though your blood pressure may go back to normal and conditions like preeclampsia or gestational diabetes may go away post pregnancy, their effects linger on. The risk of heart disease for a woman who suffered from preeclampsia doubles while gestational diabetes can cause glucose intolerance leading to obesity or other such conditions which are risk factors for heart diseases.

Hot flashes could be a sign of heart problems: Hot flashes are usually associated with menopause but may also be a symptom of underlying heart problems. Hot flashes that occur after a exerting a strenuous effort on something can be a sign of angina in women.

Men and women do not face equal risks: Traditional risks to heart diseases such as cholesterol, obesity and high blood pressure affect both men and women but some factors such as diabetes, stress, depression and smoking affect women more than they affect men. Since women tend to lead a more sedentary lifestyle than men, a lack of exercise also affects them more than it affects men. In addition, a low level of estrogen can also increase the risk of cardiovascular conditions. This is usually seen after menopause.

While some factors like genetics are out of our control, most of these factors can be controlled by conscious lifestyle changes. Your doctor may also prescribe medication for the same. Heart disease can occur at any time so do not take your heart for granted.

In case you have a concern or query you can always consult an expert & get answers to your questions!

Food which increase bad cholesterol are meat, butter or ghee, and yellow of egg. Meat here means red meat. Cholesterol is not present in any plant derived product. Foods that decrease good cholesterol are fried foods, fast foods, coconut oil, cookies. Smoking or tobacco also lowers good cholesterol. To increase good cholesterol: regular exercise, almonds, flexseeds, walnuts. However the increase is not more that 5 mg. Drugs may also help to similar extent. More important is ratio of bad (take them as criminal) to good cholesterol (take it as police). So lowering the bad cholesterol is priority. Genetically also we indians have low good cholesterol.